Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday November 02, 2012 @11:58AM
from the descent-by-natural-hunt-and-peck dept.

Lucas123 writes "As anyone who's typed on a virtual keyboard — or yelled at a voice-control app like Siri — can attest, no current text input holds a candle to a traditional computer keyboard. From the reed switch keyboards of the early '70s to the buckling spring key mechanism that drove IBM's popular PC keyboards for years to ThinTouch technology that will have about half the travel of a MacBook Air's keys, the technology that drove data entry for decades isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon. This article takes a look back on five decades of keyboard development and where it's likely to go in the future."

It came from the keyboard designer's name: August Dvorak [wikipedia.org].

It's really too bad that Qwerty is lot more catchier than Dvorak. Mr. Qwerty probably suffered a lot of bullying as a child but thanks to his catchy name his design won out in the end and thus his legacy will remain with us for millennia (until we get cybernetic man-machine interfaces).

No mention of any home computer keyboard. No mention of the PCjr and its infamous chicklet keyboard. No mention of the classic Apple Extended Keyboard. It's as if keyboard history went directly from the Model M to Dell Quietkeys with nothing in between.

The submitter of that article obviously had never tried an Oric 1 [old-computers.com] or Sharp MZ-80K [old-computers.com] keyboard.The Oric had really hard "line" keys.The Sharp had so sharp keys they would cut you.

I had a Model M back in the day. It was nice, but it's gone. Right now I'm tying on a das Keyboard. I like it a lot, though I'll be honest--I type faster on Apple's laptop keyboards. Their short travel distance is more advantageous for me than a mechanical switch, it seems, even if the das is more satisfying to type on.

Really? I have both a mech keyboard (same keyswitches as Das) and a macbook and I'm much faster on the mech keyboard. Travel length isn't that much if you are just hitting the keys until they register (i.e. click) rather than bottoming them out (which is kind of the point of a mechanical).

The weird split ergo keyboard that many folks either loved or hated comes to mind. I'm happy with my hybrid, a cheap Microsoft "comfort curve" that gives some of the alignment effect of the ergo-board without actually separating the keys.

I also had a really nifty folding accordion keyboard for my Palm Pilot a decade ago. After folding, it was locked up tight in its permanent hard case, and it was safer than the actual Palm (and about the same size.)

I like one Microsoft keyboard - the one where the keypad can be moved from the right side to the left.That makes it possible to have the keyboard directly in front of you while still not stretching to reach the mouse.

The whole WASD for games was done because of this design flaw with the numeric pad on the right. If it had been on the left, we surely would have used 8456 instead.

I believe there are more gamers and mouse users than those unable to operate a keypad with their left hand, so I think it's time f

As I sit here typing this on a circa 1984 IBM Model M Clicky Keyboard!
The finest keyboard ever made.
I have had this one for >10 years.
None of the keyboard markings have worn off. Heh. Yes, you can still find them around.

I miss my old clicky keyboard. I have been meaning to pick up a modified USB model, but have not gotten around to it. PS2 to USB adapters don't work that well at boot time. We still use them for some of our lab equipment. I agree they are the best keyboards ever made.

The website is currently down due to Sandy, but go buy the one on this page [clickykeyboards.com] and use it with your M. I no longer have an M - it died due to coffee spill - but that adapter worked perfectly. I keep it around just in case I ever pass by another M and can't resist myself.

None of the keyboard markings have worn off. Heh. Yes, you can still find them around.

You're welcome.:) I used to work in an injection molding facility that made key tops, the a's, b's, 1's, 2's, space bars and whatnot. Back in the day, this was a two-part process, the guts of the key (the part that attached to the underlying switch as well as the character itself) were molded in one "shot", then the key itself was molded around that, in a contrasting color, of course. Since the characters were molded into the key, there was nothing to "wear off". The keyboard I'm using at the moment appear

Cool info. My das Keyboard has "laser-etched" keycaps, and I've always wondered how long that will last. I would have bought the blank version, but other people in the family would have freaked out at that. If only they weren't so expensive, I would buy another.

You probably made the ones for the IBM typewriters, I remember, "Double shot molded".
You see, our forefathers knew what was necessary, they made things to last.
Now, you buy a keyboard and in 6 months the home row keys are worn off.
30 or 40 years ago you'd buy a washer, dryer or refrigerator and in 25 years it was still working.
Now, you're lucky if it lasts 5 years. They know it too, they have MBAs at the factory working on cheapening the parts to make them fail, so you will buy another.
Wherea

The biggest reason I have not returned to the iPhone is the lack of a swipe style keyboard. After adapting to it, I refuse to go back to pecking words out with my thumbs, so no iPhones until I can get swype. It has several advantages:- Word entry without looking- one-handed text entry (single thumb swipes out a word in the same time two could tap it, while being held in the same hand.)

Swype's implementation isn't flawless though. They haven't figured out it is about word shape. The biggest problem is the limited character set. On a phone in landscape, or anything bigger than a phone you should have a keyboard on one side and an alternate (numberic pad) on the other. Since we don't need to hit specific keys anymore, we can reduce the overall area dedicated to displaying the keyboard and just show one for reference (aiming) and determine the word by the shape traced out. Have a button for enlarging it for the odd word that isn't in the dictionary and you're done.

Once swype (or any other keyboard (swift key?) realizes that, we'll have the best touch keyboard we can have without a fill-size button board.

Totally agree. Typing with one thumb at a speed close to two-hand typing is brilliant. However, they really need to figure out a way to add some kind of gesture to prevent the really common misreads - out/put/pot/pit, if/it/of, so forth - the "bounce from letter to letter to specify" feature doesn't work that well. At least we no longer get "Errol" when trying to type "will" or "well".

If they could license the prediction code from Swiftkey, the combination would be almost unbeatable.

I had swype for a year on my evo but either I never got accustomed to it or the software never picked up how I write or I do some weird kind of word shape thing because it would give me - at best - 50% error rates for each word.

I disagree. My old Model M had a short, coiled cord. My Logitech keyboard has no cord. I'd say that's quite an improvement, especially since I use the TV for a monitor and sit across the room from the computer.

Ya know, the Model M keyboard cords came any way you wanted them.
I have some with short cords like you describe, and I have some with cords 10' long. They made whatever you needed. It's not a replacement for a wireless keyboard, but they do serve different purposes.
You want clicky, definite keypresses and you don't mind the sound, or you want to be able to sit back on the couch.

What's interesting about that is IBM made nearly all the typewriters, and they made those keycaps to last because that was the right thing to do.
They didn't do it because of competition- they had almost none. They owned 90% of the market.
They didn't do it because anyone demanded it.
They did it because it was the product they wanted to make. Designed to last, to perform better than the market even demanded.
Contrast that to how things are designed and made today.
Cheaper, obsolescent, designed to fail sooner rather than later. To make you buy a new one. It's sad really.

What's interesting about that is IBM made nearly all the typewriters, and they made those keycaps to last because that was the right thing to do.They didn't do it because of competition- they had almost none. They owned 90% of the market.They didn't do it because anyone demanded it. They did it because it was the product they wanted to make. Designed to last, to perform better than the market even demanded.Contrast that to how things are designed and made today.Cheaper, obsolescent, designed to fail

Laptops would still be classed as "luggable" if they had Model M style keyboards. I used to love mechanical clickyness as well, but then I discovered Thinkpad keyboards.

These days a few manufacturers do good ones, including Microsoft's desktop range. I developed arthritis in my hands so perhaps I'm not a typical case, but they really are very comfortable to type on and nice and quiet for use in a shared space.

IMO, they were the best laptop keyboards around - unfortunately, someone thought that "chiclet keyboards with flat tops are kewl!" and now all of the recent laptops I've seen for sale have keyboards that SUCK. Don't even get me started on the incredible disappearing TrackPoint.

The flat keytop nonsense has spread to desktop keyboards as well. HELLO?! Does anyone actually TEST these things to see if they're actually useful for typing?

Yep. MX Black switches all the way and plenty of different manufacturers making keyboards with them. I went with a gaming company one as it was cheaper than my friend's Das. The biggest benefit to me is less fatigue. I don't have to bottom the keys out for them to register. Of course I find I'm also a bit faster on a mech.

Only downside is my office is beside the bedroom. I have to keep a dome keyboard on hand in case the wife is trying to sleep.

No, the PS/2 came with the IBM Model M2 [deskthority.net], which was made even cheaper.All plastic construction. Smaller, cheaper key caps. The stabilizer bars were not even made of metal. No curve to the keyboard. More noisy than the bigger Model M even though it had the same springs and hammers.

A weird side-note, is that the most expensive vintage keyboard on the collector's market: the "ergonomic" IBM Adjustable Keyboard (Model M15) [deskthority.net] is closer in construction to the M2 than to the old Model M.

You really really don't want that. I mean, can you think of how many lawsuits might result from... Hey, look, that blond chick has really hot legs... interjected thoughts... I really need to go take a leak right now... that happen in normal human thought patterns.

Yes you do. Primitive brain-to-computer interfaces have already been built and they do NOT have the problem you predict. We can train our brains to control which thoughts get translated into keystrokes just like anyone without Tourette syndrome can control which thoughts get translated into speech.

Direct brain-to-computer interfaces will probably be common in less than a decade.

You can make that change yourself. I do on every computer I use. I map CAPS-Lock to crtl and crtl to capslock on linux on OSX I use caps-lock for crtl and crtl for command. I also use a Model M that weighs more than my Air.

Some Matias keyboards place Ctrl on the home row where Caps Lock usually is, and the Caps & Num Locks down between the right Alt & Ctrl. There are also utilities available to remap Caps Lock to Ctrl, but I’m not sure they work on all keyboards I’m thinking of the old ones where Caps Lock is an actual mechanical toggle that remains semi-depressed when activated, like on a typewriter. Haven’t seen that feature in quite a while, come to think of it.

It's a useful article on keyboard mechanisms, and it's a good discussion of the tradeoffs between thin keyboards and ergonomics. The history is weak.

There's no mention of key rollover, or "can you push a key before releasing the previous key"? Modern keyboards report a key down and key up event for each key, so rollover can be unlimited. Early keyboards struggled with this. The Selectric, and Teletype machines, were mechanically interlocked against multiple key-presses. Some early keyboards wouldn't handle two keys down at the same time at all.

The feedback issue was a big one. Some keyboards clicked, some had a "clicker" inside to create the illusion that they clicked, and some beeped, an annoyance which has returned with some touch screens.

It's amusing that iPad-like devices have reverted to a 3-row keyboard with multiple shifts. That's where Teletype machines were a century ago. The keyboard layout of an iPad [daringfireball.net] is very similar to that of a 1930s Teletype. [wikimedia.org]

No, you are wrong about rollover. Practically only the best mechanical gaming keyboards these days have unlimited rollover, because of there being a diode for each switch in the matrix.

Most inexpensive keyboards have instead a matrix that is optimized so that keys that are commonly used together don't block each other..There are still combinations of keys that do.Modern cheap gaming keyboards these days have matrices that are optimized so that the keys in and around the WASD cluster can be used together.

When ever a keyboard article come along you get a bunch of old farts pining away about their venerable old Model M keyboards.

Laptop keyboards today remind me of the old IBM 029 Card Punch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keypunch#IBM_029_Card_Punch [wikipedia.org] . That keyboard had a very short action that just didn't feel right to me. Although, I have been able to adapt to laptop keyboards. My ThinkPad W520 is ok.

The two best keyboards i've had. I've put my M into storage because the LIK gives me just as much feedback minus the noise, and isn't some membrane abomination -- it's a scissors action. Key dip is halfway between an M and a laptop keyboard. The feedback is amazing. No ambiguity at all -- you either hit it, or you didn't.

That it's sleek and backlit and looks like it belongs in this century are bonus points. I don't think, however, that it'll live nearly as long in daily use as a model M, however, my LI

And the funniest thing is that the current QWERTY key arrangement is here due to jamming issues with typewriters. It was designed to slow down the typing speed of old stenographers to resolve the jamming issue of old typewriters when they were typed on too fast.

Have you read the article you linked? It pretty much says the same thing:

The QWERTY keyboard, so called for the top row of letters on its left-hand side, was devised to make things easy for the typewriter, not the typist.

and

To solve the jamming problem, Sholes and company, who had originally arranged their keyboard in alphabetical order, decided to put the most commonly used letters (or what they thought were the most commonly used letters) as far apart as possible in the machine's innards.

and

Of course, a superior system exists. It's called the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, or DSK, after inventor August Dvorak, who developed it while a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

You obviously did not read the whole article, because after he says all that he adds the following after someone sent him an article challenging what you quoted:

Baloney, say the authors of the article you enclose, S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis. They point out that (1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect; (2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY; (3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years. Thus it may be fairly said to represent the considered choice of the marketplace. It saddens me to know I helped to perpetuate the myth of Dvorak superiority, but I will sleep better at night knowing I have rectified matters at last.

That isn't to say that Dvorak doesn't force you to alternate hands--it just does in the opposite direction. QWERTY is ~53% left-oriented, while Dvorak is ~54% right-oriented.

For myself, I type faster and more accurately on Dvorak (111 wpm vs 90 wpm), but that's probably due to spending most of my time in that layout. The main benefit I notice is less tangible, and that is that I suffer less fatigue if I decide to write for hours on end without a break.

You realize that the article you linked to agrees with the general story if not the specifics around stenographers:

To solve the jamming problem, Sholes and company, who had originally arranged their keyboard in alphabetical order, decided to put the most commonly used letters (or what they thought were the most commonly used letters) as far apart as possible in the machine's innards.

The design was then never changed, even though subsequent typewriter designs made it unnecessary.

Only if you stop reading before the author tells you that he was corrected by someone who had better information. The article ends like this:

Baloney, say the authors of the article you enclose, S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis. They point out that (1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect; (2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY; (3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years. Thus it may be fairly said to represent the considered choice of the marketplace. It saddens me to know I helped to perpetuate the myth of Dvorak superiority, but I will sleep better at night knowing I have rectified matters at last.

Here is linked source [utdallas.edu]. Search for citation 16 and read onwards. The autor didn't read it properly. The article states: several things:-QWERTY is a fast keyboard layout, and it has killed quite a few layouts because it is fast-Dvorak is most likely a tad faster,-The article that is the "counterpoint" of the article uses "If a typist has learned QWERTY, the cost of changing is likely too high compared to a "10% gain"*1-The studies counterpoint is at citation 31, and seems a bit flawed, just as the NAVYs test

Perhaps if you went to the original post and followed the link [straightdope.com] and then followed the link [utdallas.edu] that the author of that article provided maybe you could discover these things.

I always assumed something like this was the case, but, never really looked into it.

The whole "dvorak superiority" thing always seemed to be based on little to nothing. I mean... I learned the same ABC song as most everyone else.... but the order of letters hardly matters really, its just a memorization tool, and, of course, it helps make sure the list is correct when every student writes the letters in the same order.

Sure letters are used with different frequencies, so in a given language different letters

That was why I accepted what was said about qwerty vs Dvorak keyboards. Well, that and the fact that QWERTY is universal for every language that uses the Roman alphabet, while the Dvorak keyboard must be altered for each language (as frequency of use of each letter varies from language to language).

Actually, your reference says exactly what the OP said: The design put the most common keys away from the middle to reduce jamming. It also goes to say that Dvorak's layout really isn't much more efficient.

It says the first sentence of what the OP says, but not the second, which is false: the jamming issue was solved by re-arranging the keys, not by slowing down typists, in fact the arrangement allowed faster typing. So it doesn't say exactly what the OP said.

Actually, your reference says exactly what the OP said: The design put the most common keys away from the middle to reduce jamming.

Except that that's not what the OP said, what OP said was that the design put the common keys away from the middle to reduce jamming by slowing down typists. What the reference says is that QWERTY was designed to move keys commonly used keys farther away from each other to reduce jamming by reducing the probability that a typist at any given speed would hit nearby keys in close

And the funniest thing is that the current QWERTY key arrangement is here due to jamming issues with typewriters. It was designed to slow down the typing speed of old stenographers to resolve the jamming issue of old typewriters when they were typed on too fast.

Not to mention that QWERTY enables video games to use WASD to move around. Imagine how hard it would be to play a FPS using Dvorak! W is below and left of S, and A and S are on opposite ends of the computer!

Also, I've noticed the game Starcraft 2 has most of its hotkeys on the left side of the keyboard. Imagine trying this on a Dvorak keyboard!

So I guess my conclusion is that QWERTY was designed with gamers in mind.

I would agree; it is currently my favorite also. The last time I found some new ones on closeout (a few years back) I bought five of them. I am on the last one, and since then I have come to have another slightly-used one also. Beyond that, lies only suffering and despair....

I love the ergo-aspects, and would be disappointed to have to go without them. There hasn't been any other comparable-price keyboard built the same. The subsequent Microsoft Natu

I prefer "yelling at SIRI" to typing when using my ipad when typing prose like this. If I had similar functionality on my PC I would use it. It saves a ton of wear and tear on the hands. The biggest "drawback" is I find I need to speak with practiced diction rather than my usual drawl. Even with the mistakes I still find it faster and less tiresome.

Hrrumph. When I make a mistake, I want it to be my mistake. Not some random dribble trumped up by the misbegotten spawn of an Apple Newton.

Mechanical keyboards are going through a revival after dying out over the course of 20 years. Lots of new options popping up and targeting different niches: Razer and CoolerMaster for gaming, Matias (who just designed their own premium Alps switches) and Das Keyboard for typists, and for typists who want ergonomics there is TrulyErgonomic (with a split, unstaggered mechanical board) and good ol' Kinesis (with their iconic split fingerbowl design, also with unstaggered key layout).